PBS - Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery

Part 1 The Terrible Transformation: 1450-1750

The years 1450-1750 brought enormous changes to the North American continent. The native Americans, or Indians, as the Europeans came to call them, first encountered European explorers, and before long, saw their world transformed and largely destroyed by European settlers. And European explorers not only ventured to the lands and natural wealth of the Americas; they also traveled to Africa, where they began a trans-Atlantic slave trade that would bring millions of Africans to the Americas as well. This slave trade would over time lead to a new social and economic system: one where the color of one's skin could determine whether he or she might live as a free citizen or be enslaved for life.

Part 2 Revolution: 1750-1805

The story of the American Revolution as traditionally recounted is the saga of the thirteen colonies fighting their colonial ruler, Britain, for independence. But an equally compelling part of the story is the personal, religious, and legal challenges of African Americans of this period and their allies to slavery. The spirit of liberty and the disruptions of the Revolutionary era encouraged African American men and women to choose sides – both Patriot and Loyalist – and fight to define what Early American Colonies would become.

Part 3 Brotherly Love: 1791-1831

During its first 50 years the United States transformed itself from a small republic into an expansive democracy for white Americans. The nation tripled its population, doubled in size, and extended slavery to parts of the Western frontier. For black Americans, this same period was a contradictory mix of community-building for free blacks and entrenched enslavement for those not yet emancipated.

Part 4 Judgment Day: 1831-1865

As westward expansion took hold, the question of whether the United States would be a proslavery or antislavery nation took on new importance. In the North, antislavery forces included abolitionists, who wanted a future without slavery so that black people could be free, and Free Soil advocates, who resented having to compete with owners of slave-tended plantations for use of new lands. White Southern planters wanted a future for themselves and their prosperous way of life, which depended on the institution of slavery.